The museum director, Dr. Cat, is looking to fill the new rooms of the museum with glorious artwork, and the painter, Owl, believes he can bring just the thing to the table. Unfortunately, the sneaky forger, Belratti, does too. It’s up to you to not only paint the best art you can, but also ensure the forgeries are caught and only the true art goes on display!

What Is It?

Cooperative – Players will work together to recognize the fake paintings. Some players will play as museum directors, others as painters, and roles will rotate every round.

Limited Communication – Players can’t discuss the themes for the paintings, or any paintings in hand before the painters choose paintings to contribute to the round. Painters can’t discuss during museum director deliberations either, to avoid giving anything away.

Deduction – Museum directors are trying to figure out which paintings are real and which are forgeries each round.

Who Is It For?

  • 3 to 7 Players – It works surprisingly well at 3, but it is a little more interesting with more players. Overall, I like it at any count, but I think 4-6 might be the sweet spot
  • Ages 8 & Up / Light or Family-Weight Gamers – Small ruleset, and players work together which helps. It’s very approachable; good for lots of ages and gaming experience
  • Fans of cooperative, “discussion deduction” type games, and those who are okay with some limited communication
  • Players who can think critically about images on the more generic side and make connections between them

Variants

Masterpieces – Uses the 5 paintbrush tokens numbered 3-7. The Joker Tiles (abilities) start face down. Each round painters must play a different number of paintings, based on the paintbrush. Forgeries are drawn from the hands of the players. ALL paintings must be correct to win the round – if any forgeries are selected, players lose the round, but they do get a Joker Tile to use later. The game ends when players or Belratti have 3 tokens, whoever has 3 wins. – This mode is easier in a way, because you don’t have to match paintings to the correct theme, but it’s also harder since you can’t accidentally choose any forgeries. I think it’s worth trying once you’re familiar with the game, but I think I prefer the regular game.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Art is simple, but nice/clean, and some images have a lot of detail which can really spark discussion
  • Components – Good quality cards and cardboard tokens
  • I definitely like that the roles rotate and players don’t have to just be one or the other
    • It keeps everyone invested on every turn because of how the game shifts
  • There are a lot of cards, so there’s a good variety, and a lot of ways to connect the images
    • You can connect a painting to a theme based on anything (color, shape, material, similar use, etc) which can make things tricky, but also makes for great table talk
  • Joker tiles are great one-time use abilities, but I love that you have the chance to get them back if you have a perfect round with a certain number of paintings

CONS

  • Randomness/Luck – I’ve seen a few rounds where Belratti gets the positively perfect card for a theme and sometimes you just can’t avoid that forgery getting through. Likewise, I have seen times where the painters all feel like they have really bad choices in hand for the themes, but just end up stuck with what they have
  • If players are really good, it can run a bit too long in my opinion, since it only ends if Belratti gets 6 points (in the main game)

Final Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed all my plays of this game thus far. I think the “generic” images work so well because you can apply so many attributes to them to decide what theme they go with, both as the painters and the museum directors.

I really like the game with multiple painters, to take the pressure off a single one just a bit, but even at only 3 players (1 painter) the game is neat!

If you like cooperation and limited communication party games, you might want to check this one out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7.5/10

Designer – Michael Loth
Artists – Vipin Alex Jacob, Gaël Lannurien, Natàlia Romero
Publisher – Thames & Kosmos
MSRP – $14.95
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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